Chicago High School Produces Play About Columbine Massacre: Video

CHICAGO, IL — The Chicago Academy for the Arts spring play Columbinus premieres Friday evening — the night before thousands of students across the country will march to demand action to prevent gun violence. The play tells the tragic story of the Columbine Massacre in Colorado — from what led up to the school shooting, to its impact on students and the community.

"I see the play as a launch point for discussion," said Benjamin Dicke, academy theatre department chair. "We will have audience talk backs after each show, and that's really important because the students in Parkland, Florida have not let the issue of violence in schools go away — they are continuing to show up in protests, at their legislatures, in Washington, D.C., and demand action."

In 1999, Columbine High School seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 12 students and one teacher in a brutal, planned attack.

"The play absolutely in every way honors the victims...and it's about standing alongside the survivors," Dicke said. "The play also recognizes the inherent evil in the two shooters and what they carried out."

Columbinus depicts the shooters as the characters Loner and Freak.

"The first act discusses the sort of eight high school archetypes — there's a 'prep,' a good student named AP, a girl named Faith, a jock, a girl named Perfect and Rebel," Dicke said.

"Throughout, we get a glimpse into each of these characters' lives, the things they're wrestling with, the people they want to be and the questions that they're asking of themselves — this existential exploration of high school life."

As the play progresses, Dicke said it becomes clear that the Loner and Freak characters are experiencing bullying and social isolation.

"The whole show is based on interviews with high school students, then there's a lot of actual text, actual footage and actual interviews in the aftermath, so it's very much a docu-drama," Dicke explained.

The play was chosen as the school's spring production months before the shootings at Marshall County High School in Kentucky and Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Piper Kilman, a junior at The Chicago Academy for the Arts, is playing the character Rebel in Columbinus. When she was six years old, Kilman's mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Kilman said that watching her mom battle the disease over the past decade has taught her a lot about living every moment with purpose.

"When there are things like gun violence, which have relatively simple solutions — as opposed to cancer, which doesn't have a solution so far — I think that it is so urgent for us as humans and as students to put an end to it. I think it's so ridiculous that there is something that can be stopped, that isn't being stopped."

Columbinus, written by Stephen Karam and PJ Paparelli for the United States Theatre Project, debuted in 2005. The play will run at The Chicago Academy for the Arts, 1010 W. Chicago Ave., from March 23 to 25.

Main images courtesy of The Chicago Academy for the Arts.

Video by Amber Fisher/YouTube